MANAGING THE MASTERY OF
DATA
BY SUKETU GANDHI AND JOSHUA SWARTZ
In today’s dynamic, ever-shifting business environment, most companies realize that data is a key source of strategic advantage and an important differentiator that must be used properly. Many companies, though, are struggling with managing their mastery of data because they don’t look at it in the right way and can’t react to it efficiently. Many are managing their businesses without seeing the full picture, such as by using and evaluating only backward-looking data instead of incorporating alternative datasets. However, a few companies are managing the mastery of data, and their success both lights the path for others and underscores two important reasons for mastery. One, companies using data well can generate as much as 83% more profits than those whose analytics maturity lags significantly behind that of the leaders, according to Kearney’s 2019 Analytics Impact Index. Two, the value of the data itself has become much greater. In 2018, data represented 84% of the value of most companies’ intangible assets. The overall value of these intangibles was $21 trillion in the United States, alone—more than five times greater than the value of companies’ tangible assets, up from three times greater in 2005, according to AON and Ponemon Institute’s Intangible Assets Financial Statement Impact Comparison Report. Each data leader has succeeded by taking specific steps: they have gained an understanding of the three dimensions
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of digital transformation; they have clearly recognized and overcome the roadblocks to transformation that others overlook; and they have begun their transformation with targeted actions rather than by attacking all issues at once. The three interacting dimensions of digital transformation and managing the mastery of data are mindset, skillset, and toolset. They are equally important and work in tandem. Successful companies have learned that transformation is more likely to drive improvement when all three are addressed together, rather than individually—an approach that may seem counterintuitive to those who think technology investment will solve all their problems.
MINDSET Mindset is about changing what the company thinks about the data itself, how it thinks about its business, how it makes decisions, and how the business should operate. Changing the company’s mindset in the following five ways is a key step to managing the mastery of data: Shift from backward-looking data.. Throughout industries, including retail, it is common for companies to think that what
